Just surfing across Facebook I saw this meme and I have seen it a few other times on the web so I really thought about it and wondered is it completely true. Well one thing you really don’t see much is pastors and sermons that deal with hell much less the talk about satin. Not that I’m at church every Sunday but It’s been a long time since I heard somebody discuss the devil or hell I’m guessing it’s just not good advertising both topics do deal with judgment and we know how much society loves the topic of judgment.

The Westboro church in Kansas was and maybe still is one of the few churches out there that has no problem talking about hell, it’s just they do it in what I see as a hate filled way. If you never heard of the Phelps and the Westboro church then just leave it that way they are no guiding light for Christianity nothing to aspire to.

So if you need a threat of internal torture to be a good person does that really mean you’re a bad person. Well if the threat holds true to your heart and mind and you’re practicing to be a good person because you know being bad will result in you going to a bad place. Kind of like Karma but no kind of like despair, Karma is like recycling mankind without grace and forgiveness. We all are sinners Romans 3:23 we all deserve hell so are we all bad people?

Since the fall of man we are born into sin meaning we cannot go to heaven without Gods grace, forgiveness and salvation but I don’t believe man is born to be bad. Being bad is normally learned or taught and it kind of makes since if your learned or taught to be bad then you tend to do bad things and if your taught to be good you tend to want to do good things. What would make you stop being bad, the fear of getting caught and paying the consequences or can one just out of the blue decide I’m a bad person I need to stop. I don’t believe one can just out of the blue stop, if they were taught to be bad then they need to be taught to be good. Whether it be by God or man sent by God being bad will not stop until you are told to or shown the error of your ways. Rules set up by man will not make you a better person.

This leads me to believe the meme is based on an atheistic point of view that there is no God and you’re a stupid and bad person to change your evil ways just because the threat of hell. With that mind set are you a bad driver if you drive the speed limit and fallow traffic laws because the threat of a ticket or jail time scares you to obey the law?

As a Christian I feel it does not matter how you found Jesus as your savior, if the threat of hell led you to The God of the Bible is that bad. I could announce I’m done with Christianity and I do not believe in God his son or the Bible. I’m taking a chance in that belief, if I’m wrong then I pay the consequences of my decision and if I’m right and there is no God I die without any reason or impact basically a meaningless life whether I was bad or good it makes no difference.

I think most people that say they are saved and know and understand about having a relationship with Christ believe there is a hell and they don’t want any part of it. The motivation of being a good person is the relationship with God not being afraid of going to hell. Maybe hell got you to look at life differently, maybe hell got you to reach out for help and for grace but it’s the relationship with God and his son Jesus that makes us better and want to be good. We will never be perfect in the eyes of man or God but while we are alive it’s our love for God that drives us to seek him and be better people, if hell gets a person to that point then that is alright by me.